2026-11-03

Raspberry Pi has announced price increases on their 16GB models, citing rising DRAM costs. The Pi 5 16GB goes from $80 to $90 (UK pricing will follow suit), and the Compute Module 5 16GB variants are also affected.

This matters because the 16GB Pi 5 has become a genuinely useful homelab node — running Docker stacks, lightweight Kubernetes clusters, or acting as a capable Home Assistant box. At the original price it was already a stretch versus second-hand mini PCs, and this bump makes the value calculation tighter.

What's changing

• Pi 5 16GB: $80 → $90
• CM5 16GB variants: similar proportional rises
• 4GB and 8GB models are unaffected — Eben Upton says those DRAM prices remain stable

Should you buy now?

If you've been sitting on a 16GB Pi 5 purchase for a specific project, it's worth ordering before UK retailers adjust pricing. The 8GB model stays at its current price and is honestly enough RAM for most single-board homelab tasks — containers, PiKVM, DNS, monitoring dashboards.

Be honest with yourself about whether you actually need 16GB on an ARM SBC. If you're running a handful of containers, 8GB is fine. If you're genuinely pushing memory limits, a second-hand Lenovo Tiny or Dell Micro with 32GB of DDR4 might serve you better pound-for-pound, especially now.

Worth noting

Raspberry Pi frames this as a necessary response to component costs rather than a margin grab, which is fair enough — they've historically been good at holding prices. But it's a reminder that SBC pricing isn't immune to the same supply chain pressures hitting everything else.

If you're picking up a Pi, you'll likely want a decent cable for powering it properly — 240W USB-C Fast-Charging & Data Cable – Braided, LED Indicator handles USB-C PD nicely. For external storage, pair it with an M.2 NVMe SSD enclosure for a fast, compact setup.